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Brexit and selling used gear from the EU to the UK

The EU-UK is not a free trade area, except NI/Eire.

I have no idea what products are affected but certainly (some) food is. There was a tongue-in-cheek warning yesterday that you should not take a ham sandwich across the Channel as meat and dairy will be illegal imports UK-EU unless they go through actual import routes.

Mention of duty rates in the range of 5-8% were mentioned maybe 2 weeks back, but, again, I do not know what is affected or what direction, or if both, are affected.
 
Trade between the EU and the UK will still be free in as much as there will be no tariffs or quotas but other taxes may be payable, customs forms will have to be filled in but on the whole both importers and exporters will be able to self certificate.
The amusing thing is that to get this 'Free Trade Deal' the UK is still very much 'overseen' by the EU in that if the UK negotiates a trade deal with a country outside the EU that adversely affects any EU member state the EU can and will veto that deal and impose quotas and tariffs upon the UK.
 
Natara said:
The amusing thing is that to get this 'Free Trade Deal' the UK is still very much 'overseen' by the EU in that if the UK negotiates a trade deal with a country outside the EU that adversely affects any EU member state the EU can and will veto that deal and impose quotas and tariffs upon the UK.
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Not amusing at all, as it was going to be the case all along, totally inescapable.

By far the largest concern of the EU was that once the UK was outside, it could be used by low cost and unfair trade nations as an off-shore haven, piling stuff into the EU. China was mentioned - they'd buy a UK manufacturing company and operate it as a shell. That was NEVER going to be allowed to happen.
 
Vinny said:
Not amusing at all, as it was going to be the case all along, totally inescapable.

By far the largest concern of the EU was that once the UK was outside, it could be used by low cost and unfair trade nations as an off-shore haven, piling stuff into the EU. China was mentioned - they'd buy a UK manufacturing company and operate it as a shell. That was NEVER going to be allowed to happen.
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If you worked in the Construction industry like me with lot's of Brexit supporters who took the 'Take Back Control' mantra very literally then you would find it amusing because when I return to work and explain the details of the trade agreement and that they where inescapable I’ll get lots of bemused faces.
Again when I explain that net migration is actually up since the referendum by about 50,000 I’ll get more bemused looks.
 
Actually the import regime for the whole world has changed - not directly to do with Brexit, HMRC have just put the changes in place at the same time to take advantage of the moment as the EU arrangements have to change anyway, so the decision was made to dovetail these changes with the larger global change.

This is being done mainly to counter the advantage Chinese sellers have in (effectively abusing) Universal Postal Union cheap postage rates for 'emerging economies' together with low declaration values to enable them to sell cheap shit shipped from China at what would be below cost for a properly constitited UK business.

The main thing to change will be where and how VAT gets charged. Most foreign businesses (and marketplace platforms like ebay, alibaba, etsy etc) will be required to register for UK VAT and account for it.

How this will work for private sellers not on a marketplace programme (eg forum classifieds) is not really clear yet but essentially everything incoming is liable for VAT now, not just from non-EU countries. This won't affect things much if you buy new stuff but for second hand, there is no advantage now in buying from EU countries as opposed to non-EU, eg buying from France will be the same as buying from Switzerland.

The old below £18.50 exemption has gone (globally) so expect courier companies to whack you for a brokerage fee regardless of the declared value. However the declared value will still be the important number for VAT calculation.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...s-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021
 
Yes that's the same link as in my post above. It's reasonably clear but even a month on, there is definite confusion out there in the online marketplaces - ebay and etsy seem to have got it together but I'm not so sure about Amazon. Forum sales are going to be trickier for sure.
 
montesquieu said:
However the declared value will still be the important number for VAT calculation.
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Not strictly true. Customs can choose not to beleive it and charge accordingly. That has always been the case and I suspect that challenging a Customs valuation could be rather long-winded and possibly costly.

People should also not get the idea that anything may be a gift, is a getaround. It isn't, it is all to to do with monetary value, not what was paid, or not.
 
Declared value is indeed still the important number. It’s always been the case that it could be overridden but in the very many packages I’ve had from overseas it’s only happened to me twice.

It seems to me that the ‘gift’ designation and valuation (has to be under £34 declared value to qualify ) is the most likely to be challenged. This is fairly new in U.K. practice and we can expect the jobsworths to be out in force.
 
Also NB that VAT and duties are now payable on imports from the very many countries with whom the EU had agreements or exemptions (eg almost all less developed countries) but with which the UK doesn't (and won't for many years, if ever).
 
Sonny Beauceron said:
Also NB that VAT and duties are now payable on imports from the very many countries with whom the EU had agreements or exemptions (eg almost all less developed countries) but with which the UK doesn't (and won't for many years, if ever).
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The impact of this is minimal. VAT was always chargeable on import from anywhere outside the EU, even from within the EU customs union (eg Turkey, Norway). Additional duty (where it's charged - which is on a small subset of goods) is likely to have only a very small impact in most cases, of the order of 2-3% and then charged only on goods over £135.
 
montesquieu said:
The impact of this is minimal. VAT was always chargeable on import from anywhere outside the EU, even from within the EU customs union (eg Turkey, Norway). Additional duty (where it's charged - which is on a small subset of goods) is likely to have only a very small impact in most cases, of the order of 2-3% and then charged only on goods over £135.
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It requires businesses exporting to the (for now) UK to be registered with the UK for VAT. Many - most - are not bothering, as this process and the associated paperwork is too onerous.
Smaller dealers such as those selling LPs and CDs are required to pay duty in advance by the platform, eg ebay and I believe discogs. Now many listings specifically exclude the UK.
The UK is charging full duty on everything, including of interest here, second hand audio, regardless of value. You could of course try and reclaim this if you have an unfulfilled love of paperwork and being stonewalled.
 
ff1d1l said:
The UK is charging full duty on everything, including of interest here, second hand audio, regardless of value
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As above - duty is verging on trivial compared to VAT and has always been charged on imports from outside the EU anyway. I have bought electronics from Japan over the past year or so and the ROUGH import cost in total has been 30% of declared value, charged on hitting UK soil.
 
Vinny said:
As above - duty is verging on trivial compared to VAT and has always been charged on imports from outside the EU anyway. I have bought electronics from Japan over the past year or so and the ROUGH import cost in total has been 30% of the declared value, charged on hitting UK soil.
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The requirement to register with the UK, submit accounts to the UK and pay that assessed vat to the UK is a post brexit worldwide requirement and is pretty unprecedented. Some traders, in the US for example, are boycotting registration as they see it as setting an undesirable precedent.
 
ff1d1l said:
The requirement to register with the UK, submit accounts to the UK and pay that assessed vat to the UK is a post brexit worldwide requirement and is pretty unprecedented. Some traders, in the US for example, are boycotting registration as they see it as setting an undesirable precedent.
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I would suggest that we all know that, and have done for quite some while.
No company outside of the UK, making small individual sales to the UK would bother unless it has one SERIOUS number of small sales.
 
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